Rheumatoid arthritis may seem worse for women

Women with rheumatoid arthritis may experience worse symptoms than men with the joint disease, experts have found.

A study involving more than 6,000 patients from 25 countries found that women tended to report more severe symptoms, a greater degree of disability and higher work disability rates than men.

The findings are published in the journal Arthritis Research and Therapy and provide evidence of a clear gender gap in terms of symptoms.

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Tuulikki Sokka, from the Jyvaskyla Central Hospital in Finland, commented: 'The possible influence of gender and gender-related variables on the symptoms, severity and prognosis of rheumatoid arthritis has been of considerable interest for some time.'

Dr Sokka suggested that the gender gap may be related to physical differences between men and women rather than the disease itself.

'Given that woman is the 'weaker vessel' concerning musculoskeletal size and strength and her baseline values are lower than men's, the same burden of a musculoskeletal disease may appear to be more harmful to a woman than to a man,' she explained.

Rheumatoid arthritis is one of the two most common forms of arthritis and mainly starts in the wrists, hands or feet.

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